"Fade"

Rvng Intl.

Artists:

Holly Herndon's bleak, propulsive music toys with differing impulses: On the one hand, stand up, dance. On the other, retreat into a chair in the corner, shivering, nursing a deep, antisocial fear of all around you. As an MFA graduate in Electronic Composition who spent her teenage years DJing in Berlin, Herndon has mastered the art of inserting baleful suggestion into sleekly pulsing music: "Fade" has a strafing beat, but its unsettling creepiness is what lingers.

The track toys with both your inner ear and your sense of safety, hovering like an ominous fog lit from within by soft strobes. All around it, Herndon's voice mists in your ears, raining down in dribbles and moving past you in comet-like trails. One of the only discernible lines, "Reach out your hand," nails the song right at its emotional hinge point: It's either an invitation to join the crowd or a cry from beyond the grave. Your move.